Modern motor vehicles often have at least one drive stability system, for example, an anti-locking system (ABS) or an electronically controlled stability program (ESP) which suppresses unwanted rotations of the motor vehicle about the vertical axis. Present day driving stability programs monitor the rotation of the wheels of the motor vehicle with sensors and derive therefrom the control quantities needed for a control operation, for example, the braking force at the individual wheels. The existing driving stability program could be improved if the wheel contact forces of the individual wheel were monitored in addition to the rpms. Accordingly, it is evident that, during a braking operation, a wheel, which has a lower wheel contact force, is to be subjected to less braking force than a wheel having a high contact force in order to suppress a blocking of the wheel in the same driving situation of the motor vehicle. Furthermore, additional important physical quantities of the motor vehicle can be computed from the wheel contact forces such as a weight force or mass and the axle load distributions. Up to now, no method has been known with which the wheel contact forces of the wheels of a motor vehicle can be exactly determined with little complexity.